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In a major relief to around 40 lakh people in the city, the Centre today gave green signal to Delhi Government to regularise around 900 unauthorised colonies which were given provisional regularisation certificates ahead of assembly polls in 2008.

The approval was conveyed by Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath when Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit led a high-level delegation to him requesting early clearance for regularisation of the colonies.

The Delhi government had completed all the ground work for regularisation of the colonies, a key poll promise of the Congress government which is due to face election in 15 months.

Earlier, Union Urban Development Ministry had sought certain clarifications from the Delhi Government on regularisation of the colonies which were cleared for regularisation by all the concerned departments.

Delhi government had sought opinion from Union UD Ministry whether the Delhi High Court should be informed about the regularisation process as in an order in 1993, it had asked the city authorities to do so.

Sharma said government would inform the court about the the regularisation process when information is sought.

"The Delhi Government will issue a notification tomorrow to regularise 917 colonies," Sharma said.

Delhi government had issued provisional regularisation certificates to over 1,639 unauthorised colonies ahead of assembly polls in 2008. The then Dikshit government, while distributing the certificates, had promised to regularise the colonies if Congress came to power for the third term.

However, not a single colony was regularised til now.

The process slowed down considerably last year following allegations that some "non existent" as well as "ineligible" colonies were given provisional regularisation certificates flouting norms.

After the Congress' defeat in municipal polls in April, Dikshit had asked all concerned departments to expedite the regularisation process.

Lack of developmental work in unauthorised colonies, which were traditional Congress strongholds, was identified as a major reason for the defeat in the municipal polls.

Sharma said the Union Urban Development Minister has asked Delhi Government to present all the details about the remaining unauthorised colonies so that the hurdles coming in their regularisation can be removed.

Forest department, ASI and certain other agencies have objected to regularisation of the remaining colonies arguing that parts of their land have been grabbed by the occupants.

Officials said the UD Ministry has also approved a proposal to grant freehold rights to residents of 45 resettlement colonies which were developed